Yepremian was the Dolphins kicker on both of the Super Bowl championship teams.

While he was arguably the NFL’s top kicker of the 1970’s, he’s immortalized for a gaffe.

In Super Bowl VII, the undefeated Dolphins were leading Washington 14-0 when Yepremian’s field goal attempt with just over two minutes left in the game was blocked.

Yepremian

Yepremian retrieved the ball and made the ill-advised decision to throw it. It was intercepted and Washington cornerback Mike Bass returned it for a touchdown.

The Dolphins still won 14-7 and capped off the only perfect season in NFL history. If it wasn’t for Yepremian’s pass attempt, the Dolphins might would have won the Super Bowl 17-0 in the 17-0 season.

It’s become one of the top blunders in NFL history.

“Unfortunately, I don’t get paid every time they show it or I wouldn’t have to work the rest of my life,’ Yepremian once said.

But there were more highlights than errors in his career.

Yepremian’s 37-yard field goal in double overtime lifted the Dolphins to a 1971 Christmas divisional playoff win against Kansas City. It remains the longest game in NFL history and one of the most memorable. The Dolphins went on to defeat Baltimore in the AFC title game before falling to Dallas in the Super Bowl.

They won the next two titles and haven’t repeated the feat since then.

“While Garo is also remembered for his ill-fated pass attempt following a blocked kick in Super Bowl VII, even that miscue demonstrated his competitiveness — he was just trying to do whatever it took to make a play,” Moore said. “And that was a singular exception in Garo’s outstanding career in Miami that led him to become the only kicker in Dolphin history to make multiple Pro Bowls, and he remains the second leading scorer in Dolphins history.”

Yepremian — just 5-foot-7, 160 pounds — was born in Cyprus. He had only watched football on television but believed he could make a living in the United States.

He had a tryout with Detroit in 1966 and made the team, spending two years with the Lions.

After the 1967 season he enlisted in the Army. He returned to Detroit in 1968 but the Lions didn’t re-sign him.

When he was with the Lions his thick accent was imitated by Johnny Carson after he famously told teammate Alex Karras “I keek a touchdown!” following a game-winning field goal.

Tepremian joined the Dolphins in 1970, playing in Miami until 1978. He was Pro Bowl MVP in 1973 and spent his last three seasons with New Orleans and Tampa Bay, retiring after the 1981 season.

He was voted the 1970’s kicker of the decade by the Pro Football Hall of Fame Committee.

In 2001, he founded the Garo Yepremian Foundation to raise money for brain tumor research to help his daughter-in-law through her fight with cancer. She died in 2004.

Yepremian suffered the same fate. But he’ll forever be remembered as a key part of the Dolphins’ most successful era.